SAY DON'T GO! Seth Cohen

Palm Springs

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR, the links
( palm springs )

Gina often found isolating herself stopped bad things from happening to her, and staying home and locking herself in her room kept her safe from the anxiety-inducing world she lived in. But it wasn't long before she realised that being alone kept her feeling a sense of dread and loneliness that writing in a diary couldn't fix. 

Seth Cohen tended to be her escape. A boy who could make her forget about the horrors of uncertainty and the terrifying thoughts of the future by simply making her laugh. They always stayed at the Cohen's house, never once even thinking about stepping outside but Gina had never felt the way she felt in her bedroom, alone, at the Cohen's. Gina didn't think she would ever meet someone who topped that. But after one day of preschool, she did. 

Summer Roberts was an extroverted girl - quite the opposite of Gina. But the two were literally two peas in a pod, albeit a very sugary pod of peas given the girls were always jumping around in excitement and screaming lyrics to their favourite songs as they shopped together. Summer had always made Gina feel comfortable outside, in public. It was strange but Summer really was the best at keeping Gina sane (a pretty hard task given Gina, herself, couldn't even do it) 

The two spoke about anything and pretty much everything. Nothing was off limits and today their topic of conversation was Oliver Trask and his little drug problem. 

After the concert, offers and invitations about travelling to different holiday places and trips to other holidays were thrown around by Marissa's so-called 'rich' friend. On multiple occasions, they were turned down almost immediately (Ryan being the first to say how bad of an idea it was) due to the group being 'busy.' Which was a lie, none of them were busy. The five were always going out together, in fact, they were quite the opposite of busy. 

But Oliver managed to convince the group to go on a trip to his family's holiday home up in Palm Springs and Gina wasn't much excited. Oliver had reached out to James to invite the boy and tried to get Charlotte to come along as his plus one, but Ryan quickly stepped in. Gina was just glad that she could get away from her brother and his happy relationship because that was starting to make her feel sick. 

So now Summer and Gina were shopping for holiday clothes and talking about why going to this dumb thing was a bad idea, of course, none of those problems were big enough to stop them from taking a free weekend to sit by a pool with a drink in their hands. 

"I can't believe he was actually arrested," Summer laughed. She pushed her sunglasses up to sit on top of her head. Gina looked over at her, her eyebrow raised as she ran her hand down a blue bikini coverup. 

"Why wouldn't he have been?" Gina asked, her eyes darting down to the fabric. "He broke the law." Summer nodded. She placed her hand on her hip. 

"Yes," she spoke as she rounded the sunglasses display and moved over to Gina. "But if you're a coke head then surely you should be able to hide it better. Like you're a professional." Gina snorted. 

"A professional cokehead?" she laughed. Summer nodded with a laugh. 

"Just don't get caught," the girl winked at Gina before reaching over and grabbing the blue coverup. "Simple." Gina rolled her eyes. "Now come on, let's try this on." 

"I don't know if I want it," Gina told Summer, hurriedly catching up to her as she strutted over to the changing rooms. She reached over and grabbed another piece of clothing, a blue halter bikini top.